If you die, I'll die.' 'But is you live, I'll live.' - Bowman and Kestrel, Firesong

The English seem to think drinking wine is like committing adultery, something you do rarely and abroad.

My study is a converted garage which is largely lined with bookshelves and cardboard boxes filled with manuscripts of my film scripts, plays and books.

Why should I be honored? Don't I have enough attention, comfort and power already?

Madly, futilely, I wrote novel after novel, eight in all, that failed to find a publisher. I persisted because for me the novel was the supreme literary form: not just one among many, not a relic of the past, but the way we communicate to one another the subtlest truths about this business of living.

We write to know we are not alone

There is this notion that the lives of the comfortable-off middle class don't merit being treated seriously and with compassion.